


Bad days and bars

by WhisperingDarkness



Series: Wisps of Tales and Dreams [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Banter, Bars, Civillians and shinobi, Drinking, Gen, Humor, Ibiki being Ibiki, Insults, Shinobi, Smut, The Evils of Procrastination, Writing, but not in that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2536889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingDarkness/pseuds/WhisperingDarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you going to drink that entire bottle?" a dark-haired ninja chewing on a long needle asked her full of amusement as he joined them at <em>her</em> <em>table</em>.</p><p>She gave him a firm, unimpressed look. To her side she heard Izumo-san snort. "Yes I am, shinobi-san, yes I am. I will drink so much that I will hopefully not remember a single thing that happened today."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad days and bars

* * *

 

**Bad days and bars (they have a causal connection)**

**…or why taking up drinking is a viable life-choice**

 

* * *

 

"Hey, where have you been? I thought you were just going to see about sending a package but I haven't seen you all day."

Miya shot him a dead look and moved right past him to the bar where she ordered and paid for a large bottle of sake. Then she retreated to a more quiet corner and sat there, sulking, waiting for her drink to be brought.

Kotestu didn't take the hint and sauntered after her. "Well, you look grumpy. Had a bad day?"

"I hate shinobi. And after I leave I am never setting foot in this thrice cursed village again," Miya said harshly.

"Ouch. That hurts. And you seemed like such a nice person too. Were you always this mean?"

She ignored him – because he was one of  _them_. Sure, he seemed nice when she first entered the village, friendly and really not that scary. So she thought, hey, these people aren't as bad as everyone says. She knew better now, those dratted paranoid shinobi are as bad as every story made them out to be.

The bartender brought her the entire sake bottle she'd ordered and she nodded to him shortly. She could afford it and she had really earned the right to indulge after the day she had. "Praise the Kami," she said reverently, as she poured that first saucer of sake and swallowed it down without pause.

"Are you going to drink that entire bottle?" a dark-haired ninja chewing on a long needle asked her full of amusement as he joined them at  _her_   _table_.

She gave him a firm, unimpressed look. To her side she heard Izumo-san snort. "Yes I am, shinobi-san, yes I am. I will drink so much that I will hopefully not remember a single thing that happened today."

The dratted man grinned and picked up one of the three other saucers the bartender had so thoughtfully provided (with the assumption that the bottle was meant for more than one person). He presumptuously poured himself a small amount of sake and took a sip. "Hey. This is the good stuff. Expensive."

"I'm not in the habit of drinking," she informed the three men at her table, who were, apparently, not budging, "But if I'm going to drink it's going to be 'the good stuff'. I earned it, anyway. I just spend six hours in a room with the most sadistic bastard I ever had the displeasure of meeting."

"Who? Morino Ibiki?" Izumo joked.

Miya looked up, feeling somewhat vindicated. "Ah! So it's not just me who thinks that! Not if he's the first person that comes to mind for you."

"Wait what? Why!?" Kotestu-san was the one who asked the question, but all three of them were looking at her like they'd never seen her before.

"Because apparently making inquiries about sending confidential mail and wondering if anyone would read it, and then deciding  _not_  to send  _your private mail_  is highly suspicious." Miya filled another saucer and downed it quickly.

"If that was all it would have been resolved easily enough if you'd just let who-ever Intelligence sent read your mail."

She glared at the matter-of-fact statement from the shinobi. "Well  _Intelligence_  sent Morino Ibiki and I had gotten the hint what sort of  _utter paranoid fuckers_  shinobi were by then so I didn't exactly refuse." The sake had loosened her tongue enough by now to let the curse come out, despite the fact that she wasn't usually so  _outspokenly_  vulgar.

Izumo and Kotetsu had already pegged her as someone with an easy-going and somewhat introverted personality in the preceding days, so they laughed at the unexpected venom.

"So he had my  _private_  mail, and I had some half-hearted assurances that they were all professionals and my confidentiality would not be infringed upon. I'm pretty sure that the rest of it was  _purely_  because that asshole gets off on watching innocent civilians suffer. Because there can be  _no such rule_  that the person who wrote the mail has to be there when it is read through no matter  _how_  much that ass tried to bullshit me with his 'in case we need to ask for clarification' and 'so that we may witness the sender's reactions and see if there's a deeper meaning'."

She growled at the memory and glared at all three shinobi because they were there.

"Innocent?" an amused rumbling voice questioned, ignoring the rest of her rant.

Miya didn't need to look up to know who it was. She moaned and lay her head down on the table. "I thought that after that traumatizing experience I would never have to see you again."

"Aaah. I see. Well, that's more along the lines of wishful thinking than innocence Miya-chan."

How  _dare_  that bastard sound so amused after keeping her in that windowless room  _all day_  while he read the  _entire_ copy of her book that was to be send to the publisher. "I hate you with every fiber of my being. And I will have my revenge," she said tonelessly, head still down on the table, "It will be so subtle it might as well be non-existent. It will likely by highly pathetic and you may never know it happened. But  _I_ will know. And I will revel in it. And it  _will_  come."

"It will  _come_ ," Ibiki repeated, his voice low and almost seductive, "and you will...  _revel_  in it. I can tell that you're a writer."

She actually groaned and started softly banging her head on the table. "Please stop talking to me," she actually  _begged_ , not that she thought it would do much good - she'd already figured out he was completely  _merciless_  after he read the three chapters out loud in its entirety and just wouldn't stop no matter what she said (or threatened).

Her worst fears were confirmed when she heard a chair softly scrape across the floor. She groaned even louder and blindly tried to find her sake saucer. Some kind, noble soul bumped it against her hand. "Bless you," she told it fiercely, and she lifted her head enough to take a sip. Yes, maybe she could survive this - if only she managed to ignore That Man's presence. That shouldn't be too hard, right? She'd just pretend that he didn't exist. _That chair was empty_.

With a firm nod she lifted herself into a somewhat upright position.

"Back with us?" Izumo-san asked laughingly.

"Unfortunately," she told him with a glare.

He snorted, "Hey, whatever happened to 'bless you'?"

"You are blessed. Now scram. Leave me to my sake and my misery, all of you."

They didn't. Stupid shinobi. They all pretended they didn't hear her and started trivial conversations with each other. Miya decided to ignore them in turn. That worked, for a while, but there was something bothering her about that dark-haired shinobi, and the longer she was in his presence the more it irked her. Even when she didn't look at him, she still couldn't relax because she could feel that it was still there, but why? Finally she couldn't take it anymore.

"Ok, why the hell are you sucking on a needle?" she shot out to the man in question. The ninja just grinned at her around the needle.

"It's a senbon." Kotetsu-san helpfully offered.

She gave him a weirded-out look and waited for a further explanation. There wasn't one.

And then it got worse because The Asshole made his presence known once more.

"Oi, Kakashi!" Ibiki called to a ninja with the most ridiculous haircut she had ever seen.

This new masked shinobi was either confused or hesitant because he didn't move their way right away. Instead he took a good long look at everyone in their corner before finally deciding it was safe enough to come over (or that he was curious enough to risk it).

Miya just felt the sense of doom increasing. She downed another saucer of her sake to silence the feeling.

"Miya-chan, this is Hatake Kakashi," Ibiki introduced in the most friendly tone she'd ever heard him use.

She looked at her erstwhile 'interrogator' in dismay. "What the fuck are you so happy about, you sadistic shit?" She then glared at the silver-haired shinobi for good measure. Yes, she got rather… honest after having a lot to drink. Most of the time it made for friendly and somewhat embarrassing conversations, where she admitted to childhood secrets and awkward truths too easily.

Right now, though, it made her cuss. Because that man was a sadistic  _asshole_  and she was just telling it as it was.

"Nothing in particular," Morino Ibiki replied easily, completely unbothered.

To add insult to injury, so was the newly introduced Hatake. His one visible eye closed into a happy curve. "Nice to meet you."

She blinked at him and then she visibly deflated and looked mournfully at her sake saucer. It was empty. It was the only thing that could make this situation somewhat bearable. She refilled it.

She heard Kotetsu smother a laugh. She ignored him.

"You know," she said after a hint of liquid tranquilizer that dulled her emotional pain just enough that she could stand to speak with them. "I seem to recall that I claimed this table to be alone and wallow in my misery. With my own personal bottle of sake," here she glared at the shinobi who had dared to sample it before. "So why, for the love of all that's good in this world,  _are you here_?"

"Well, you seemed to be rather grumpy," Izumo ventured, "We were just being good friends and sharing your pain."

"Exactly. Sharing is good," the brown-haired guy added helpfully and his hand darted to her sake bottle again.

She growled at him. The shinobi was not deterred. She mourned the loss of yet another saucer of sake – she had a feeling she was going to need every last drop of that bottle.

She  _hated_  these dratted shinobi. And one of them above all others. Her hard eyes turned to the root of all evil in this world. The Root of All Evil smirked at her and explained his presence calmly. "I was just doing you a favor; introducing Kakashi. I had a feeling you'd get along well. After all, you have similar interests."

Hatake Kakashi had pulled out a book in the meantime and was mostly ignoring them. It was a book with a familiar glaringly orange cover.

A little sob escaped her lips. Morino Ibiki's smirk widened.

"You ninja are all evil. And perverted."

" _We_  are the perverted ones?" The Bastard drawled "I don't think we could outmatch  _your_  sexual fantasies."

A part of her died the fiery death of shame. The other part of her was desperately trying to defend her own honor by pointing out the large flaw in his. "Hey! Whatever happened to confidential, huh? Whatever happened to 'we're just doing our job, as professional ninja's, making sure that no dangerous information leaves this village. Your personal mail will not be shared beyond this necessity.'" Her imitation of his voice was an utter failure. She ignored it. So did he.

The other ninja at the table were looking at the verbal sparring match, openly entertained. Except for Kakashi, she couldn't quite tell if he was paying attention – let alone what he was feeling. What she  _did_  know was that she was doomed, because she knew by now that The Evilest One had an answer for everything, not a shred of human decency and no shame or mercy whatsoever.

So it was a bit less of a match and a little bit more like a slaughter.

"Oh yes, we are  _all_  professionals here," The One Without Mercy uttered, "I'm a professional in torturing people. Kakashi is a professional in killing them. You're a professional at making them aroused. To each their own."

"WHAT THE FUCK. Did you just call me a whore?" she practically screamed. For a moment the bar was completely silent. Then everyone went on with what they were doing. They were used to (Anko) much worse.

Ibiki shrugged his shoulders. "I was just saying that you have no room to call anyone else perverted."

"Enough!" she declared, standing up and throwing up her arms to the heavens (or the roof of the bar as the case may be) "Fine, I get it – procrastination is  _bad_. No more putting off the last read-through of your book and sending it off at the last moment. Especially not if you know you're going to be in a ninja village because  _apparently_  confidentiality and privacy and  _normal human decency_  doesn't mean jack shit there. I get it, I learned my lesson. Now for the love of Kami-sama and innocent kittens, leave me in peace."

She took a deep breath, sat down, gave a little hiccup-y sob and accepted the sympathetic pat on the back Izumo gave her. Despite the fact that his 'there, there' sounded highly amused.

Her hand reached for the sake she had rightly deserved after her new resolution. Because she was turning over a new leaf, no matter how hard it would be for her - she would not procastinate on any of her writing anymore and was now working towards a brighter future with a lesson well learned.

She would likely also take up drinking as a habit, because there was no way she could function in this world without hard liquor after the trauma of the day.

The  _senbon_ -chewing shinobi kindly refilled her saucer and gently put it in her hand. Then he refilled his own. She still gave a grateful smile for his kindness despite the fact that he was a presumptions ninja bastard and that she still didn't know his name. Some things were more important, after all, and today the sake was one of them.

She drank down the sake and made one more resolution. "I am also never writing porn again, pen name or not. The Icha Icha series is dead. From now on it will be children's books again, written under my own name."

Then a devilish idea formed in her mind on the heels of that. "And I've got a perfect idea all thought out. The plot needs some work, but the character of Mobino Iriti is already formed in my mind. Yes. He shall look like a grumpy bear, but with a puddly, cuddly heart and there shall be kittens and rainbows. And children. And possibly brightly coloured underwear worn on the outside of his clothes because, he will assure the children, that's what superheroes look like. It will likely be pink, now that I think about it."

The Cause of All the World’s Suffering didn't look impressed. Or horrified.

She frowned. He could have at least _pretended_ to be bothered. But no, that would require human decency, something The Soulless Creature was obviously devoid of.

She looked at the other occupants of her table. Kotetsu-san and Izumo-san stared at her in utter surprise. She glanced between them for a long moment, trying to see if that surprise would turn judgy in any way. It didn't. Good. These shinobi had _no right_ to judge her for what she did for a living - not when they were all of a far more dubious moral fiber than herself, thank you very much.

Her gaze turned to the up-to-then disinterested and unruffled ninja. For some reason, Hatake Kakashi looked like he was going to cry.

Shinobi were so strange. And also evil. _Let him_ cry, she thought vindictively. Then felt rather bad about it. Maybe her time spent in Morino Ibiki’s presence was having an effect on her? Oh Kami, what if he was sucking out her soul even now? What if she would soon be like him? She turned her horror-filled eyes back to It.

He looked like any other shinobi, a bit off, but not inhuman.

She knew better and watched him suspiciously for any sign of soul-sucking.

"Don't you think going from writing smut to children’s books is a rather drastic change?" the nameless man finally offered, after a long moment of silent expressions being exchanged at their table.

Miya turned to him, and was reminded of her new resolution. Ah yes, she was turning over a new leaf. Her eyes turned teary at the resurgence of her memories of the many hours she had spent in  _that room_  today. "I just spent the day suffering for my sins," she said, piously, "the gods have no mercy on us. And neither does That Guy. He read it _all_. Most of it out loud. He made  _suggestions_. He piled up embarrassment over embarrassment until my soul cried out in shame."

Yes, that sounded about right. Then she realized she had forgotten to add the most important reason she could never write another such book again.

"And after those six hours, I'll never be able to write another 'Icha Icha' chapter without hearing his voice as the narrator in my head."

The Vengeance of the Gods laughed.

Hatake Kakashi looked  _broken_.

Miya stared mournfully at the empty sake bottle and saw that the last bit of sake was in the senbon-sucking guy's hands.

She still didn't know his name.

**Author's Note:**

> Soo… yeah. What if ‘Icha Icha’ had been a bit more plot oriented, still rather steamy and hadn’t been written by Jiraiya? (Because it’s an open secret that women enjoy reading or writing smut a lot more. Right? Right. I’m pretty sure I’m right.)
> 
> Also, if I wrote a series of smut/porn novels, I would have used a pen name too.


End file.
